What the Future May Bring
by Coletta
Summary: Integra miscarries and the residents of the Hellsing mansion are left with the sad task of dissembling the no longer needed nursery. One shot.


It had been no secret that Alucard hadn't been thrilled by Sir Integra's decision, but when she miscarried the artificial birth, he regretted ever saying so out loud, as it made his condolences sound patronizing and insincere.

Her smoking habit had been the primary culprit. She hadn't smoked during her pregnancy, but her doctor suspected she should have quit long before attempting to conceive.

With this in mind, Alucard had proactively appointed himself Integra's smoking watch dog--monitoring her scent for any hint of tobacco and bravely subjecting himself to physical harm when it became necessary to confront her or confiscate any offensive contraband. He thought some genuine attempt to help her successfully conceive might absolve him of the dishonor of his voiced doubts.

He tried to think positively about the prospects of a baby in the Hellsing manor and started imagining Integra's belly swelling and how it might feel under his hands when the little unborn thing kicked. Something about that imagery began to win him over--his hands resting on Integra's stomach, a baby developing inside.

Integra managed to remain smoke-free for over a year. With great anticipation, she returned to the fertility clinic for a second insemination.

--

The _first_ time, Integra had been stoic, but depressed. One in seven pregnancies end in a miscarriage, and she was crushed that her first 'child' would be little more than a statistic. She'd had many sleepless nights after that, wondering if it was wrong to name a _future _baby the name she had picked out for _this_ one. Did this dead baby even have an identity? Or was it just a non-viable fetus that had been scraped out of her body and discarded? There hadn't been anything solid to bury after the doctors finished flushing her uterus. Just tissue and fluids. No baby. Just tissue and fluids.

Ultimately, she picked out a new name. She never told anyone what the first one was.

After the _second _pregnancy failed, she was hysterical.

She had to be restrained. Sedated. Watched.

When she came home, she was watched still.

--

Alucard placed his palm on her empty belly. "They'll fix it. They'll find out what's wrong and you can try again."

Sir Integra removed his hand, not because his familiarity insulted her, but because the gesture reminded her of the emptiness. "There's no fixing it. Besides, I don't want to my body through it a third time."

--

Walter had repainted Integra's childhood bedroom a sunny yellow and gotten it ready to serve as a gender-neutral nursery. It was supposed to be a surprise. Now the doors to that room were locked. Gifts from well wishers who were unaware of the miscarriages were hidden in that room, and Walter guarded it carefully to prevent Integra from discovering it. At night, while the lady of the house slept, Walter and Alucard quietly removed the bassinettes, stuffed animals and pacifiers from the mansion and hid them in a tool shed. After a month, Walter painted the room back to the dull lavender it had been.

Seras had been assembling her own little congratulatory gift for the expectant mother that also had to be disposed of: the copies of the ultrasounds assembled in a little hand-bound booklet. She had intended on documenting the baby's entire development through birth, ending with a photo of the newly born infant. Now the booklet was only partially completed, with many sad, blank pages at the end. Not feeling right about throwing it out, Seras ultimately put it in a garbage bag and buried it on the wooded hillside behind the house.

--

Alucard dug it up.

He wrapped the booklet in a tissue and hid behind a loose stone in the sublevels. He kept the sunny yellow paint swatch with it, along with a list of hurriedly-scribbled name suggestions.

--

At 2am, Integra stood at a window at the end of the third floor hallway, wrapped in a heavy robe, and watched the winter wind whip tiny white snowflakes across the shooting range. The earth was a luminous orange from the artificial lights reflecting against the snow on the ground and in the sky.

From the darkness, Alucard stepped behind his master and slipped his arms under her's and placed his palms on her flat belly.

She knew he did it out of habit. During both pregnancies, she had allowed him to touch her, as his senses were far more advanced than any ultrasound, and he could detect everything. He had been the first to suspect there was a problem, days before she had experienced any discomfort. She had ignored his initial concerns.

He had become comfortable touching her body without direct permission each time and she had accepted the familiarity with a degree of fondness and guilty self-indulgence. But now, six months later, she was insulted by his presumption. If he thought his uninvited fondling brought her comfort, he was wrong: it only reminded her of the void.

Integra resisted the urge to reproach him or push his hands away. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. It was not Alucard's fault that she couldn't…after all, he was only trying to…

He was very close, touching her back with his chest, nearly embracing her. His mouth was close to her neck, the tip of his nose touching her hair. "Hellsing will be okay," he said. "Even if you don't have a baby. I'll make sure Hellsing's mission is never compromised, even if I have to carry on by myself."

She shrugged in his arms. "Either someone else will be appointed to fulfill my position, or Hellsing's duties will be absorbed by other organizations. It's as simple as that. But I can't agonize about that now."

"Or," he suggested, "Hellsing can fulfill its mission in your lifetime. We can eradicate all vampires from the earth. Then we can retire in style."

"Eradicating all vampires would mean you would die too."

"You'll have to find a way to cure me," he replied casually. "I can't enjoy the Caribbean sun as I am anyway. I don't tan well."

"'Cure' you," she chuckled.

They were quiet for a while.

Then Integra said, "Do you think vampirism is a thing that could be conquered by medical advances, rather than military might?"

"Many wars are being waged by medical means," Alucard mused. "Chemical warfare. Bio-terrorism.. Someday, reversing my condition may be as simple as taking a little pill. Teenagers will become vampires over the weekends at parties, passing around their infection, then go to the pharmacy Monday morning and be human again by noon. There will be specials on the nightly news warning parents about the dangers of their children dabbling in vampirism. And the humans will look back on your secret organization with mild contempt and think 'How backwards they used to be a hundred years ago.'"

"That's preposterous."

"If you say so," Alucard said. "But the world we live in today is unrecognizable in comparison to the world I was born in. Back then, the smartest people in the world thought the universe revolved around the Earth."

Integra was still, then she felt Alucard kiss her ear. "Don't give up on having a baby. You don't know what the future will bring."


End file.
